A new cousin and new glasses!

Saturday last week, Michaela was a little scamp and refused to have a nap during the day. Daddy tried to get her to sleep and then Mommy tried, but she just wouldn't nap. So, Daddy had to go out and Mommy got on with some much-needed housework while Michaela entertained herself. Then she got a bit grumpy, so Mommy sat with her a while watching TV (which she calls weewee - how cute!) and she seemed to be getting sleepy. But by now it was after 4pm and she's not allowed to nap late or we can't get her to sleep at night. Mommy went into the kitchen for a while and came back to find Michaela snoozing on the couch. Her little head was bobbing away and it was so cute to watch. Unfortunately, Mommy had to wake her, so poor little girl only had a ten minute nap!

And last Sunday, we were so pleased to have The Thomsons come to stay. Auntie Julie, Uncle Ingram and new baby cousin Lottie were on their way back home from Aberdeen and we had the pleasure of them staying with us for a night before they went back to Unst. Here's Auntie Julie with her new baby. Now Granny Pat and Grandad have 5 grand-daughters and no grandsons.
We had a house full of visitors come to see the new baby. Here's cousin Eve with baby Lottie.
Michaela has learned how to kick in the bathtub, which we're encouraging so she'll kick when we go to the swimming pool. She's pretty good at doing it in the bath, but she seems to not like to do it in the pool. But, she has been floating on her own with only her armbands for support in the pool, so we're still keeping up with swimming once a week.

And on Thursday, we went to get Michaela's new glasses. Michaela has a slight squint and the eye clinic has recommended these glasses to help correct it. We think she'll have another appointment in February/March to assess the progress. She's pretty good with her glasses, but we can't get her to wear them anywhere near as long as recommended - maybe that'll come with time. We had to order the smallest size they had and they're still a bit too big for her. Doesn't she look grown up with her glasses on?!

And this Saturday, Michaela was 18 months old! People say the time will pass quickly and we are certainly aware of that now. She loves to help out, so here she is helping carry a bucket up the road. She was walking so fast with it, Daddy struggled to get a picture, so here she is taking a break! We're finally starting to gear up for Christmas. Mommy's going to decorate our tree now - maybe we'll get a picture of it on the next blog (unless Michaela's pulled it over by then!).

Getting bad at this - rest of Nov

Okay okay, bad blogging, but hopefully this amount of pictures will keep everyone happy!

Daddy discovered that Michaela just loves to eat pomegranates! She was even getting upset if any piece fell on the floor, she loved them that much. A bit messy, but we're so happy she seems to love most fruits.
Since winter is now here, Mommy has been wearing her boots. As usual, Michaela just loves to wear Mommy's boots at any given opportunity, so here she is. Unfortunately, they were so big on her that she fell over and was a bit upset. But not upset enough to want to take them off!
Michaela is very pleased to be a big girl and spends a lot of time playing with her dolls. Here she is feeding Upsy Daisy, who she calls Daisy Do. We even have to get her bib out so she can put it on her dolls before they can eat!

And here are two of her favourite toys - Daisy Do and Baby. This is her getting them to give each other a kiss. Michaela is pretty good at giving kisses now - we always get one when we're leaving for work in the mornings and before bed at night. Other than that, it's most definitely at Michaela's discretion.

That's most of the rest of November taken care of. On to the first December blog.....

On to the November news

Mom got an email through about 17 month olds and it said they should know a few words now, say up to 5 or something like that. So Mom and Dad decided to compile a list to see how many words Michaela uses in the correct context (when she's in the right mood, she'll repeat just about anything you say, so those words don't count). And we came up with about 60 words!!!! We just couldn't believe it. Now I wonder where she got the ability to chat away from........

We went to visit one of our neighbours at the start of the month and they have a cat house in their shed. Michaela found this very exciting and stood at the opening so she could pet the cats as they tried to get out. Luckily for her, their cats are very friendly.

Michaela's love of music doesn't stop with the guitar, she has discovered Daddy's mouth organ and loves playing it. At the weekend, Mom and Dad take turns for who gets to have a long sleep and Mom sometimes wakes up with Michaela playing the 'moothie' as she calls it. You would think it might annoy me, but it doesn't, it is literally, music to my ears!

Auntie Ivanna brought over loads of winter jackets for Michaela and Mom thought this one was really funny - it makes Michaela look like she's got no neck. Hmm, I wonder if it's just a little bit too big for her yet?
Michaela has finally started having a proper interest in books. Sometimes you can actually get through a whole story with her before she goes running off. Here she is reading a pop-up book with Granny Up-By.
Here's a pic of Michaela with Uncle Lionel - and it gets to combine two of her favourite things - TV and food!
As a laugh, Auntie Ivanna posted over a jacket with loads of frogs on it because it's the running joke that Daddy has an obsession with frogs (long story, but he'll say it's definitely not true!). What was supposed to be a joke, isn't anymore. Michaela likes to wear the jacket and she actually gets complimented on it.
Michaela has been to the eye clinic to see about her slight squint and they've decided that she should wear glasses and they'll check her again in February. So Mommy and Granny took her to the opticians on Wednesday to find glasses for her. To everyone's surprise, she was really great about trying on the glasses, so fingers crossed she'll actually wear them when we get them. We assume she's fine with them because Mommy wears glasses. As soon as we get the glasses, I'll try to get the blog updated with a photo.

The rest of October....

Okay, don't really have any excuses for why the blog has not been updated in a very long time, but I'm attempting to make up for it by adding loads of pictures and a quick recap of the last month....

Turns out Michaela thinks she's musical (and her parents do too, but we're maybe a bit biased). Here she is playing Daddy's guitar

And playing the piano with her little cousin Elise. See baby on the piano - that's her favourite toy and it goes most places with us and baby has to go to bed with Michaela at night too!

Here's Michaela with her best friend Cerys, running down the road outside the house. Michaela just adores Cerys and says her name very clearly. Each time they meet up, they have a little chat telling their news to each other - it is just about the cutest thing ever!
We went to Granny's and Michaela thought she was really good on the computer. Maybe she's destined to work in an office like her Mom?
And Michaela's obsession with shoes has moved on to an obsession with Mommy's green shoes in particular. This is the first time she managed to get outside with them on and she was pretty good walking around in them.
Daddy took Michaela to the rocky beach, where she discovered jumping in puddles! This new game is continuing as today Mommy took Michaela to get new shoes and within half an hour, she'd found a puddle to jump around in and get them dirty. Oh well because they're bright pink shoes anyway and Mommy doesn't really like pink.
And finally, the end of October brings us to Halloween. Owen had a Halloween party, so Michaela got dressed up for it. No idea what she is - some kind of pumpkin/witch/fairy perhaps? Anyway, she enjoyed it!

And Daddy managed to make a lantern - we were all very impressed with it, so Mom thought it had better go on the blog too. And Michaela thought it was so good, she liked to say 'ooooh' whenever she saw it.

Lots and lots of pictures!!!

After being so bad at taking pictures recently, Daddy and Mommy decided to make an effort to take more pictures of Michaela. And now it seems we have loads to show everyone, so this is a big blog, picture wise.

We all know Michaela is a climber, but she seems to have had a bit of a growth spurt recently too. So (excuse the coming pun), but her climbing has reached new heights! The other day, she discovered how to climb onto our coffee table (see pic below). It's so cute because she's worked out that if she opens the drawer and steps inside, it gives her that little bit of extra height she needs to be able to climb up. And today, she managed to climb onto the futon all by herself. So we've now got to watch out a bit more.

Dunno why, but Mommy just loves this picture!


And of course, the usual bath photos. In these ones, you can see Michaela's toothbrush, which she seems to love.

And here she is taking down a stack of blocks. She does like playing with the blocks. Daddy has seen her manage to stack five up herself!


This week at Toddlers, there's been a special guest artist. There's a black board with pre-cut holes in it, which the kids get to put wires and pipe cleaners through and also draw on the board. Michaela loved it so much, she even skipped snack time! Anna (the artist) thinks Michaela's the youngest child she's worked with using this. Mommy was so amazed to see Michaela put the wire through the hole. It was also funny to see how scared she got when a bit of pipe cleaner would come through the board from another kid pushing it through from the other side! Maybe Michaela's got some of her Daddy's artistic side, because it certainly does not come from Mommy!

Spending time with Daddy

Mommy and Michaela went to see Michaela's second cousin Iris a few weeks ago, along with Amy and her boys. Michaela had such a fun time there, so we'll hopefully make the time to go along more often. Here's a picture of her relaxing while we were there!
Daddy has been off work for the last two weeks, so he's had loads of time with Michaela. Especially since Mommy decided to have a short holiday south Thursday to Monday. Fortunately, Michaela is quite an easy girl to take care of, so Daddy had a great time with her while Mommy was away. They even got along Daddy's grandparents twice - here's a pic of Michaela with Daddy's Granny (especially for you Auntie Carol!).
And while Mommy was at work one day, Owen and Lesley came along for a play. Daddy attempted to get a good picture of the two of them on the back of the couch, but it didn't quite work. Oh well, as you can see, they had a great time trying!
Michaela's speaking continues to come on loads. She can say upstairs, thank you (although Mommy still hasn't heard it yet), shop, and loads more. Everyday she's learning a new word - it's amazing! And, she's started telling us when she has or is about to poop, but this can also just mean a fart. But, we're trying to listen to her and last night she pooped in her potty! I don't think we're ready for potty training yet, but if she wants to go in her potty, of course we'll encourage her.

Our little girl is growing up

Not much on at the moment, after all the excitement of the wedding and having loads of family home. Granny Pat & Grandad have gone off to Australia, so we won't be seeing them for a while. Auntie Jean has gone to America, Uncle Lionel to Guyana, so it seems like everyone's left after the wedding. But, we go on as usual.

Michaela's best pal Owen has started walking now. She seems to love playing with him, even when he doesn't quite understand all of her silly games. See, we play a lot of chasing games with Michaela, so whenever Owen walks or crawls towards her, she screams because she thinks it's a great game! Poor Owen. But, she's started sharing now, so here she is giving him some of her strawberries.
After that lunch, we went through to the living room to play, but Michaela thought the best thing was Lesley's jacket! So she just wrapped herself up in it and sat there for ages. And whenever Owen went for the TV buttons, she pointed at him and yelled 'No!'. We think she's just very happy to be able to say no to someone else since she gets told no many times each day.
Another pal of Michaela's just started at the nursery this week. And apparently he was a bit upset during the day, so Michaela tried to console him! Hopefully that means she's no longer upset at us for putting her to the nursery (we've had three weeks with no tears when Mom drops her off).

Not much picture taking this last couple of weeks, so here's yet another bath one (with her bubble beard). Check out Michaela's big belly!
And the other family news is that Shelby and Dave got married on September 7th and had a baby girl (Samantha) on Septemebr 9th! Congrats to them. I'm sure Michaela can't wait to meet her new little cousin!

Today we went swimming and Mom is pretty sure Michaela was flirting with the life guard! Last week she kept making sure he was watching her and this week she decided to keep waving and saying 'hiya' at him!

Speaking of speaking, Michaela's says loads of words now - a sample of words from today are splash, shoes, hiya, ball, meat, up, socks & baby. Her speech is very good and improving every day. And what's even better is that she understands so much more than she can say. Mom was impressed because as we walked out of the house today, Mom told Michaela to wait and she did actually stop on the ramp until Mom came out! Here's hoping she'll continue to listen to her Mom ;)

Elise is 1

On the same day Auntie Joyce & Stevie got married, Elise turned one. Since we had the wedding to go to, Daddy took Michaela to see Elise on Sunday. Apparently they had quite a few fights over the toys.
Michaela loved playing with the doll, so we'll have to get her one of her own. Iris (Michaela's second cousin) was staying at our house for the wedding and Michaela was so lovely to her. Iris is three months old and Michaela kept wanting to give her a bottle or her dummy. So we should have realised she'd love to play with a doll too.
Auntie Ivanna came with loads of new clothes for Michaela. This is one of our favourite outfits on her, so we just had to get it on the blog. Doesn't she look cute?
Other news, Michaela says a few words now, but the most impressive is 'all gone' when she's finished her food! It amazes us everyday how much she is learning and taking in.

Michaela's first wedding

Auntie Joyce and Stevie got married on Saturday! It was the first wedding Michaela's ever been to (although we played in the hall instead of seeing the wedding as Michaela was just wanting to run around).

I can't remember if I mentioned before that Michaela now knows how to give kisses. It's the best thing ever to get a nice slobbery kiss from our little girl. Here's a few pics of her kissing her big cousins (Eve first, then Megan).

Here's a family snap of us at the wedding.
And this is Michaela with Stevie's son, Ronan. Michaela loves playing with Ronan and they spent a lot of time running around the hall before the meal.
The wedding was great. Loads of family were home for it. Our house was nearly full, but it was great!

Not much excitement

Unfortunately, there's not been too much on, so the blogging is very late. But, here's what we've been up to. A few weeks ago, it was the Burra rowing regatta. Since we've got so many Burra relations, most of the Bigton family turned up for it. Here's Auntie Nan and Michaela walking up the hill from the regatta to the Hall. It took a very long time, but Michaela was so proud of herself for being able to walk the distance!
A couple of nights before Ella and Hope went home, Ella came over and fed Michaela her dinner. Ella was so good at it and Michaela enjoyed having someone else help.
On Saturday, Daddy decided to take out the chute we got from Nicola (it was James's many years ago - he's nearly 16 now!). Michaela loved it as she usually only gets to play on one like this at Toddlers. She was pretty good at climbing up the stairs, but wasn't sure how to get her feet out from under her to actually go down properly so she still needed a bit of help. Daddy did say that once she just fell face first down the slide, but she thought it was funny. Luckily for Mom and Dad, Michaela isn't usually very bothered if she falls down - maybe it's because we don't make a big deal of it, or is that called neglect?!

Owen came up for a play too, so here he is going down the slide.
What else can I say? Just some very typical weeks. Next week will be more exciting because Auntie Joyce gets married on Saturday, so most of the Bigton family is home for it (Shelby will be missing because she's due to have a baby on the 14th of September and Uncle Hop is still in the States - come home you two!).